dawdle vs fritter

dawdle

verb
  • To spend time idly and unfruitfully; to waste time. 

  • To move or walk lackadaisically. 

  • Chiefly followed by away: to spend (time) without haste or purpose. 

noun
  • An act of spending time idly and unfruitfully; a dawdling. 

  • Synonym of dawdler (“a person who dawdles or idles”) 

  • An act of moving or walking lackadaisically, a dawdling; a leisurely or slow walk or other journey. 

fritter

verb
  • To squander or waste time, money, or other resources; e.g. occupy oneself idly or without clear purpose, to tinker with an unimportant part of a project, to dally, sometimes as a form of procrastination. 

  • To break into small pieces or fragments. 

  • To cut (meat etc.) into small pieces for frying. 

  • To sinter. 

noun
  • A dish made by deep-frying food coated in batter. 

  • A fragment; a shred; a small piece. 

How often have the words dawdle and fritter occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )